Philosophical Background to 19 th Century Modernism

Size: px
Start display at page:

Download "Philosophical Background to 19 th Century Modernism"

Transcription

1 Philosophical Background to 19 th Century Modernism Early Modern Philosophy In the sixteenth century, European artists and philosophers, influenced by the rise of empirical science, faced a formidable intellectual challenge to liberate western culture from a deeply entrenched Aristotelian and medieval world view. The modern approach emphasized the role of the individual as a rational investigator, unencumbered by the dogmatic and uncritical appeals to authority and tradition so much a part of the pre-modern era. With the rise of individualism in the modern western world, the people who made up a society came increasingly to be thought of as independent and separate selves. This new conception of what it means to be a human being a subject of experience emerged from the radical changes taking place in sixteenth and seventeenth century Europe. From the perspective of a philosopher such as Descartes, the emerging concept of the individual was that of an essentially immaterial and a priori conscious subject a thinker or cogito that observes its own nature and the world around it from a position of rationality, detachment, and objectivity. The underlying assumption here is that we, as thinkers, are linked to pure rationality a transcendental order. We are rational beings because the universe is rational. The universe is rationally ordered because God is rational. Thus, by objectively empirically and scientifically studying the order concealed in nature we are studying the ways of "God the Mathematician". Thus, "objectivity" and rationality, together with an increasing value placed on the individual, put the human being "Man, the measure of all things" at the center of History and knowledge. And with this rational freedom and centrality of the individual came a strong measure of responsibility and duty to protect and increase the autonomy of every rational human being. Eighteenth Century Rationalism and Empiricism This new concept of the subject was to have increasing and far-reaching effects on social life, religion, science, politics, and the arts. For example, during the Enlightenment in the eighteenth century the prospects for understanding and harnessing the forces of nature increased dramatically due to the successes of modern science and technology in explaining various natural phenomena in rational and mechanical terms. It should be noted that this enlightened approach, while accepting the achievements of science, retained vestiges of the Christian world view. Many of these enlightenment thinkers assumed an ontological separation of "Man" and "nature" mind and body and thus the possibility of characterizing human experience as, in some sense, distinct from natural events. Social reforms during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries typically focused on reason as a way out of the dogma ("appeal to authority") and absolutism of the Middle Ages, as well as the privilege claimed by the ruling classes since the fifteenth century. Human freedom and autonomy two concepts of emerging importance were thought to be achievable primarily through objective observation, reason, and critique. What does this mean and what were the assumptions lying behind these concepts?

2 The first is that objective observation of the world around us provides unmediated access to reality. This assumption can be seen in full force in the writings and work of Galileo. The second is that Reason, which many believed to be the essence and defining feature of human nature, was considered a natural endowment equally distributed among all human beings. This was a fairly widespread belief among many intellectuals and found explicitly in the writings of Montaigne and Descartes. And third, the route to Truth that bypasses the entrenched dogmas is through the practice of critique, i.e. approaching life critically by examining and questioning all beliefs and claims of knowledge. Thus, the experience of human beings on earth was taken as the basis for a grand teleological concept of History to be fully developed in the nineteenth century. On this account, still much beholden to the Christian tradition, the history of "Man" becomes the story of how human beings came to increase their freedom from the natural world and the material constraints associated with it by the exercise of their innate capacity to think logically in the pursuit of truth and knowledge. The route to this teleological historicism in through Kant's reconciliation of rationalism and empiricism. Kant's Critical Philosophy (Transcendental Idealism) If all you know is based on the contents of your own mind (as standard forms of empiricism suggest), then most of our ordinary assumptions about knowledge must be set aside. Empiricists assume there is only one source of knowledge the ideas one finds in the mind, all of which are acquired through experience of the external world of nature. Knowing is assumed to be a matter of getting the impressions and ideas in the mind (mental representations and logical judgments) to conform to the external objective world. This, Kant claims, is a mistake. He suggests instead that knowledge is grounded in and made possible by, in the most fundamental sense, intuition and understanding, in particular, the a priori forms of intuition and the categories of the understanding. As a result, he turned the tables on the empiricist theories of knowledge by claiming that the objective world that we experience the external world outside the mind conforms to the mind, not the other way around. It's for this reason that his view is referred to as transcendental idealism. Intuition is the process of grasping that which is given in experience. The forms of intuition are space and time. Understanding is judgment according to concepts, often expressed propositionally (e.g. "This is a rose", where the concept rose is applied to an intuition an object of consciousness.) These judgments are made possible and also limited by the structure and operation of the mind. They are subject to the categories of the understanding (substance, unity, plurality, cause, possibility, existence, etc.) operating in conjunction with the faculty of Imagination. Two Orders of Reality: The Phenomenal and the Noumenal As a result of his epistemological views views about knowledge and how it s acquired Kant concluded that a whole range of philosophical problems, including the immortality of the soul, the existence of God, and freedom of the will, could never be resolved. Thus, we may well have opinions with regard to these very basic and fundamental questions, but no real knowledge. It also follows, according to Kant, that certain basic tenets of the Judeo-Christian tradition cannot be defended rationally, but must be held, if at all, on faith alone. As stated above, Kant claimed that our knowledge of the deterministic natural world is governed by the structure of the mind. Metaphysical beliefs (in God, free will, immortality, etc.) cannot be proven or refuted. They are beyond the limits of human reason and understanding. In Kant s 2

3 terminology, we can know things as they appear to us phenomenally but not as they are in themselves noumenally. In distinguishing between the phenomenal and the noumenal, Kant frees a space for morality and faith within his system. Morality must be noumenal and grounded in faith. Beauty (linked to morality by Kant) and art also lie outside the bounds of human knowledge. Dominant Tendencies in Late 18 th Century German Thought: Hegel There was a strong reaction among German intellectuals of the late eighteenth century to mainstream (French) Enlightenment thought. Hegel's work grew out of two important aspects of this reaction which came to be known as Romanticism and had a profound impact on literature and visual culture in the 19 th century. 1. Expressivism: Johann Gottfried von Herder ( ) The German response arose in opposition to positivistic and utilitarian aspects of the Enlightenment thinking about the human being "as both subject and object of an objectifying scientific analysis. The focus of objection was against a view of man as the subject of egoistic desires, for which nature and society provided merely the means to fulfillment". [See Charles Taylor, Hegel and Modern Society, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979, 1] Greater emphasis was placed by the romantics on the (aesthetic) unity of life and its holistic and thematic nature. Herder and others developed an alternative notion of man whose dominant image was rather that of an expressive object. Human life was seen as having a unity rather analogous to that of a work of art, where every part or aspect only found its proper meaning in relation to all the others.to see a human being as in some way compounded of different elements: faculties of reason and sensibility, or soul and body, or reason and feeling, was to lose sight of the living, expressive unity [Ibid., 1f] On this view, the highest fulfillment is reached in a life lived as an expressive activity. This is in contrast with science which not only distorts the unity of life but also isolates the individual from society. [Ibid., 2] The human being is continuous with nature, the romantics claimed, not separate from it. 2. Moral Freedom Kant's radically free moral subjectivity and the a priori binding nature of moral law was another important reaction against the objectifying tendencies in utilitarian thinking. The utilitarian reasoned as follows: "If man was to be treated as another piece of objectified nature, whether in introspection or external observation, then his motivation would have to be explained causally like all other events. [T]his was not incompatible with freedom, for was not one free in being motivated by one's own desire, however caused?" [Ibid., 3] Not so, argued Kant. Freedom arises from the self-determining nature of the moral will outside of nature and causality and independent of desire and inclination. But this freedom is purchased at a cost the separation of Reason and Nature. [Ibid., 6] Thus, to reconcile this apparent duality, it became necessary to find a way of uniting the expressive unity of life with moral freedom. While we can't go into the details here, suffice it to say that this approach to romanticism culminated in Hegel's emphases on 3

4 the historically conscious subject, texts with meaning determined by the unified and coherent intentions of the author, a teleological approach to history. One of the parallel developments related to this way of thinking which had a profound impact on cultural analysis is hermeneutics. Hermeneutics Hermeneutics rejected objectivity as practically unachievable and emphasized the value of subjective experience. Basic Assumptions Cultural products are "texts" (understood in a broad sense) and must be interpreted as such. The primary function of a text is to communicate meaning from an "author" to a "reader". The primary aim of textual analysis is understanding, not explanation. "Language", also understood in a broad sense, is the primary medium of the communication of meanings. This hermeneutic approach ran parallel to a thread in European thought of the nineteenth century that emphasized imagination (Romanticism) and ethical judgment in philosophy and the arts, as well as an increasing interest in communication and interpretation, which had the effect of weakening the critical aspect of culture, while strengthening the value placed on the individual. Materialism and Historicism: Marx Another important development, both coming out of and in reaction to Hegel and German Idealism, can be found in the work of Karl Marx. Marx and other materialists generally rejected hermeneutics' reliance on subjective imagination and its lack of criticality. By adopting an empirical approach to the study of human existence, and by attempting to make of it a science, Marx set out to challenge the idealism that exerted such an influence on German thought in the nineteenth century. The idealist, such as Hegel or Plato, believes that there is a realm of true being that supersedes and, in some sense, determines or controls the material events of human history. Hegel, for example, conceived of an Absolute being that puts matter into motion from the realm of pure spirit. The course of human history is then the attempt of the Absolute to project itself into matter and thus to extend its existence beyond the limitations of pure spirit through the vehicle of individual human lives. The Absolute, according to Hegel, completes itself through Man. The problem with Hegel s view, according to Marx, is that it starts with a theory, in this case a set of theological assumptions about God (the Absolute Spirit) and the role of nature in the divine plan. But such an approach introduces a bias that can never be overcome. As a result of Hegel s theological bias, he constructs an elaborate and ingenious speculative philosophical system which merely reinforces and rationalizes his own personal beliefs which are not subject to observation or refutation. This is not the proper way to proceed according to empiricist and scientific principles of explanation. One must start with a question, not with an answer, and appeal to the facts in order to answer the question. Thus, it is through observation of facts that one derives a theory; one does not rearrange the facts in order to fit an a priori assumption. In 4

5 this conflict between Hegel and Marx we see, once again, a contrast between rationalist and empiricist approaches. Marx felt that by looking at the actual history of real human societies one forms a very different view of the world. More specifically, Marx came to the view that if we look honestly at the historical record of material (economic, social, and political) events taking place from the ancient through the feudal and ultimately to the capitalist form of political economy, we find a pattern emerging. Based on this pattern, Marx felt it was possible to predict the emergence of a new form of social order. Through his critique of Hegel and his own historical studies, Marx came to the conclusion that capitalism the quintessentially modern form of economic relations in the West violates the essence of human nature, which is grounded in the need to work to transform nature and express oneself through one s creations. The problem of the modern world is that human beings have been separated from that which is essential to a good life control over the process of making things for their own use and pleasure. In this way, according to Marx, the human being is defined by work. Creativity in the sense of free productive labor is what gives meaning and purpose to our lives. Alienation arises when one is unable to realize his or her potential for creative and cooperative work. Freud's Psychoanalytic Theory To complete this brief discussion about the real (hidden) source of power and determination in human life and history, we should also mention the contributions of Sigmund Freud. As physiological and rational explanations of "abnormal" human behavior also appeared increasingly inadequate to many in the late nineteenth century, Freud developed a new theory based on the unconscious an aspect of the mind which lies between the purely material, biological level and conscious thought and perception. According to Freud, since human behavior is shaped by unconscious desires, rational control, hermeneutic understanding, and social and economic reorganization cannot fully explain it. [The interpretations of the western metaphysical tradition are also challenged by Nietzsche. But that's another story.] Summary The trajectory outlined above, which traces the broad development of modernist thinking in the West, leads us to mid-twentieth-century postmodernism. There we find a loss of faith in the grand narrative of the western metaphysical tradition due to the failure of religion to provide a transcendental source of meaning and purpose; [crisis of meaning] the failure of science to establish an objective world of facts (events determined by natural laws) to which we have direct access; [crisis of truth] the failure of the conscious (Cartesian) subject to know itself through direct access to its own nature. [crisis of subjectivity and self-knowledge] Thus, the following theses replaced the universalisms of the past with a radically different, postmodern view of the world and our place in it. This change can be summarized roughly in the following three theses. All experience is mediated. All knowledge is constructed and contingent. All accounts of reality are ideological. Timothy Quigley,

UNIT SPECIFICATION FOR EXCHANGE AND STUDY ABROAD

UNIT SPECIFICATION FOR EXCHANGE AND STUDY ABROAD Unit Code: Unit Name: Department: Faculty: 475Z022 METAPHYSICS (INBOUND STUDENT MOBILITY - JAN ENTRY) Politics & Philosophy Faculty Of Arts & Humanities Level: 5 Credits: 5 ECTS: 7.5 This unit will address

More information

A Comprehensive Critical Study of Gadamer s Hermeneutics

A Comprehensive Critical Study of Gadamer s Hermeneutics REVIEW A Comprehensive Critical Study of Gadamer s Hermeneutics Kristin Gjesdal: Gadamer and the Legacy of German Idealism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. xvii + 235 pp. ISBN 978-0-521-50964-0

More information

None DEREE COLLEGE SYLLABUS FOR: PH 4028 KANT AND GERMAN IDEALISM UK LEVEL 6 UK CREDITS: 15 US CREDITS: 3/0/3. (Updated SPRING 2016) PREREQUISITES:

None DEREE COLLEGE SYLLABUS FOR: PH 4028 KANT AND GERMAN IDEALISM UK LEVEL 6 UK CREDITS: 15 US CREDITS: 3/0/3. (Updated SPRING 2016) PREREQUISITES: DEREE COLLEGE SYLLABUS FOR: PH 4028 KANT AND GERMAN IDEALISM (Updated SPRING 2016) UK LEVEL 6 UK CREDITS: 15 US CREDITS: 3/0/3 PREREQUISITES: CATALOG DESCRIPTION: RATIONALE: LEARNING OUTCOMES: None The

More information

Jacek Surzyn University of Silesia Kant s Political Philosophy

Jacek Surzyn University of Silesia Kant s Political Philosophy 1 Jacek Surzyn University of Silesia Kant s Political Philosophy Politics is older than philosophy. According to Olof Gigon in Ancient Greece philosophy was born in opposition to the politics (and the

More information

UNIT SPECIFICATION FOR EXCHANGE AND STUDY ABROAD

UNIT SPECIFICATION FOR EXCHANGE AND STUDY ABROAD Unit Code: Unit Name: Department: Faculty: 475Z02 METAPHYSICS (INBOUND STUDENT MOBILITY - SEPT ENTRY) Politics & Philosophy Faculty Of Arts & Humanities Level: 5 Credits: 5 ECTS: 7.5 This unit will address

More information

1/8. The Third Paralogism and the Transcendental Unity of Apperception

1/8. The Third Paralogism and the Transcendental Unity of Apperception 1/8 The Third Paralogism and the Transcendental Unity of Apperception This week we are focusing only on the 3 rd of Kant s Paralogisms. Despite the fact that this Paralogism is probably the shortest of

More information

Conclusion. One way of characterizing the project Kant undertakes in the Critique of Pure Reason is by

Conclusion. One way of characterizing the project Kant undertakes in the Critique of Pure Reason is by Conclusion One way of characterizing the project Kant undertakes in the Critique of Pure Reason is by saying that he seeks to articulate a plausible conception of what it is to be a finite rational subject

More information

TEST BANK. Chapter 1 Historical Studies: Some Issues

TEST BANK. Chapter 1 Historical Studies: Some Issues TEST BANK Chapter 1 Historical Studies: Some Issues 1. As a self-conscious formal discipline, psychology is a. about 300 years old. * b. little more than 100 years old. c. only 50 years old. d. almost

More information

Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, 2d ed. transl. by Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall (London : Sheed & Ward, 1989), pp [1960].

Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, 2d ed. transl. by Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall (London : Sheed & Ward, 1989), pp [1960]. Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, 2d ed. transl. by Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall (London : Sheed & Ward, 1989), pp. 266-307 [1960]. 266 : [W]e can inquire into the consequences for the hermeneutics

More information

COURSE: PHILOSOPHY GRADE(S): NATIONAL STANDARDS: UNIT OBJECTIVES: Students will be able to: STATE STANDARDS:

COURSE: PHILOSOPHY GRADE(S): NATIONAL STANDARDS: UNIT OBJECTIVES: Students will be able to: STATE STANDARDS: COURSE: PHILOSOPHY GRADE(S): 11-12 UNIT: WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY TIMEFRAME: 2 weeks NATIONAL STANDARDS: STATE STANDARDS: 8.1.12 B Synthesize and evaluate historical sources Literal meaning of historical passages

More information

Truth and Method in Unification Thought: A Preparatory Analysis

Truth and Method in Unification Thought: A Preparatory Analysis Truth and Method in Unification Thought: A Preparatory Analysis Keisuke Noda Ph.D. Associate Professor of Philosophy Unification Theological Seminary New York, USA Abstract This essay gives a preparatory

More information

REVIEW ARTICLE IDEAL EMBODIMENT: KANT S THEORY OF SENSIBILITY

REVIEW ARTICLE IDEAL EMBODIMENT: KANT S THEORY OF SENSIBILITY Cosmos and History: The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy, vol. 7, no. 2, 2011 REVIEW ARTICLE IDEAL EMBODIMENT: KANT S THEORY OF SENSIBILITY Karin de Boer Angelica Nuzzo, Ideal Embodiment: Kant

More information

AESTHETICS. Key Terms

AESTHETICS. Key Terms AESTHETICS Key Terms aesthetics The area of philosophy that studies how people perceive and assess the meaning, importance, and purpose of art. Aesthetics is significant because it helps people become

More information

Necessity in Kant; Subjective and Objective

Necessity in Kant; Subjective and Objective Necessity in Kant; Subjective and Objective DAVID T. LARSON University of Kansas Kant suggests that his contribution to philosophy is analogous to the contribution of Copernicus to astronomy each involves

More information

that would join theoretical philosophy (metaphysics) and practical philosophy (ethics)?

that would join theoretical philosophy (metaphysics) and practical philosophy (ethics)? Kant s Critique of Judgment 1 Critique of judgment Kant s Critique of Judgment (1790) generally regarded as foundational treatise in modern philosophical aesthetics no integration of aesthetic theory into

More information

1/9. The B-Deduction

1/9. The B-Deduction 1/9 The B-Deduction The transcendental deduction is one of the sections of the Critique that is considerably altered between the two editions of the work. In a work published between the two editions of

More information

Critical Theory. Mark Olssen University of Surrey. Social Research at Frankfurt-am Main in The term critical theory was originally

Critical Theory. Mark Olssen University of Surrey. Social Research at Frankfurt-am Main in The term critical theory was originally Critical Theory Mark Olssen University of Surrey Critical theory emerged in Germany in the 1920s with the establishment of the Institute for Social Research at Frankfurt-am Main in 1923. The term critical

More information

The Shimer School Core Curriculum

The Shimer School Core Curriculum Basic Core Studies The Shimer School Core Curriculum Humanities 111 Fundamental Concepts of Art and Music Humanities 112 Literature in the Ancient World Humanities 113 Literature in the Modern World Social

More information

Postmodernism. thus one must review the central tenants of Enlightenment philosophy

Postmodernism. thus one must review the central tenants of Enlightenment philosophy Postmodernism 1 Postmodernism philosophical postmodernism is the final stage of a long reaction to the Enlightenment modern thought, the idea of modernity itself, stems from the Enlightenment thus one

More information

INTRODUCTION TO THE POLITICS OF SOCIAL THEORY

INTRODUCTION TO THE POLITICS OF SOCIAL THEORY INTRODUCTION TO THE POLITICS OF SOCIAL THEORY Russell Keat + The critical theory of the Frankfurt School has exercised a major influence on debates within Marxism and the philosophy of science over the

More information

Kant: Notes on the Critique of Judgment

Kant: Notes on the Critique of Judgment Kant: Notes on the Critique of Judgment First Moment: The Judgement of Taste is Disinterested. The Aesthetic Aspect Kant begins the first moment 1 of the Analytic of Aesthetic Judgment with the claim that

More information

Kant s Critique of Judgment

Kant s Critique of Judgment PHI 600/REL 600: Kant s Critique of Judgment Dr. Ahmed Abdel Meguid Office Hours: Fr: 11:00-1:00 pm 512 Hall of Languagues E-mail: aelsayed@syr.edu Spring 2017 Description: Kant s Critique of Judgment

More information

Department of Philosophy Florida State University

Department of Philosophy Florida State University Department of Philosophy Florida State University Undergraduate Courses PHI 2010. Introduction to Philosophy (3). An introduction to some of the central problems in philosophy. Students will also learn

More information

Human Finitude and the Dialectics of Experience

Human Finitude and the Dialectics of Experience Human Finitude and the Dialectics of Experience A dissertation submitted in fulfilment of the requirement for an Honours degree in Philosophy, Murdoch University, 2016. Kyle Gleadell, B.A., Murdoch University

More information

foucault s archaeology science and transformation David Webb

foucault s archaeology science and transformation David Webb foucault s archaeology science and transformation David Webb CLOSING REMARKS The Archaeology of Knowledge begins with a review of methodologies adopted by contemporary historical writing, but it quickly

More information

INHIBITED SYNTHESIS. A Philosophy Thesis by Robin Fahy

INHIBITED SYNTHESIS. A Philosophy Thesis by Robin Fahy INHIBITED SYNTHESIS A Philosophy Thesis by Robin Fahy I. THE PROHIBITION OF INCEST Claude Lévi-Strauss claims that the prohibition in incest is crucial to the movement from humans in a state of nature

More information

PHILOSOPHY PLATO ( BC) VVR CHAPTER: 1 PLATO ( BC) PHILOSOPHY by Dr. Ambuj Srivastava / (1)

PHILOSOPHY PLATO ( BC) VVR CHAPTER: 1 PLATO ( BC) PHILOSOPHY by Dr. Ambuj Srivastava / (1) PHILOSOPHY by Dr. Ambuj Srivastava / (1) CHAPTER: 1 PLATO (428-347BC) PHILOSOPHY The Western philosophy begins with Greek period, which supposed to be from 600 B.C. 400 A.D. This period also can be classified

More information

A Soviet View of Structuralism, Althusser, and Foucault

A Soviet View of Structuralism, Althusser, and Foucault A Soviet View of Structuralism, Althusser, and Foucault By V. E. Koslovskii Excerpts from the article Structuralizm I dialekticheskii materialism, Filosofskie Nauki, 1970, no. 1, pp. 177-182. This article

More information

Part II. Rational Theories of Leisure. Karl Spracklen

Part II. Rational Theories of Leisure. Karl Spracklen Part II Rational Theories of Leisure Karl Spracklen Introduction By calling this section of the handbook the part concerning rational theories of leisure, we are not suggesting that everything in the other

More information

THE RELATIONS BETWEEN ETHICS AND ECONOMICS: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS BETWEEN AYRES AND WEBER S PERSPECTIVES. By Nuria Toledano and Crispen Karanda

THE RELATIONS BETWEEN ETHICS AND ECONOMICS: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS BETWEEN AYRES AND WEBER S PERSPECTIVES. By Nuria Toledano and Crispen Karanda PhilosophyforBusiness Issue80 11thFebruary2017 http://www.isfp.co.uk/businesspathways/ THE RELATIONS BETWEEN ETHICS AND ECONOMICS: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS BETWEEN AYRES AND WEBER S PERSPECTIVES By Nuria

More information

CAROL HUNTS University of Kansas

CAROL HUNTS University of Kansas Freedom as a Dialectical Expression of Rationality CAROL HUNTS University of Kansas I The concept of what we may noncommittally call forward movement has an all-pervasive significance in Hegel's philosophy.

More information

Aspects of Western Philosophy Dr. Sreekumar Nellickappilly Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology, Madras

Aspects of Western Philosophy Dr. Sreekumar Nellickappilly Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology, Madras Aspects of Western Philosophy Dr. Sreekumar Nellickappilly Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology, Madras Module - 26 Lecture - 26 Karl Marx Historical Materialism

More information

Categories and Schemata

Categories and Schemata Res Cogitans Volume 1 Issue 1 Article 10 7-26-2010 Categories and Schemata Anthony Schlimgen Creighton University Follow this and additional works at: http://commons.pacificu.edu/rescogitans Part of the

More information

Hegel and Neurosis: Idealism, Phenomenology and Realism

Hegel and Neurosis: Idealism, Phenomenology and Realism 38 Neurosis and Assimilation Hegel and Neurosis: Idealism, Phenomenology and Realism Hegel A lot of people have equated my philosophy of neurosis with a form of dark Hegelianism. Firstly it is a mistake

More information

The Senses at first let in particular Ideas. (Essay Concerning Human Understanding I.II.15)

The Senses at first let in particular Ideas. (Essay Concerning Human Understanding I.II.15) Michael Lacewing Kant on conceptual schemes INTRODUCTION Try to imagine what it would be like to have sensory experience but with no ability to think about it. Thinking about sensory experience requires

More information

124 Philosophy of Mathematics

124 Philosophy of Mathematics From Plato to Christian Wüthrich http://philosophy.ucsd.edu/faculty/wuthrich/ 124 Philosophy of Mathematics Plato (Πλάτ ων, 428/7-348/7 BCE) Plato on mathematics, and mathematics on Plato Aristotle, the

More information

By Rahel Jaeggi Suhrkamp, 2014, pbk 20, ISBN , 451pp. by Hans Arentshorst

By Rahel Jaeggi Suhrkamp, 2014, pbk 20, ISBN , 451pp. by Hans Arentshorst 271 Kritik von Lebensformen By Rahel Jaeggi Suhrkamp, 2014, pbk 20, ISBN 9783518295878, 451pp by Hans Arentshorst Does contemporary philosophy need to concern itself with the question of the good life?

More information

Notes on Gadamer, The Relevance of the Beautiful

Notes on Gadamer, The Relevance of the Beautiful Notes on Gadamer, The Relevance of the Beautiful The Unity of Art 3ff G. sets out to argue for the historical continuity of (the justification for) art. 5 Hegel new legitimation based on the anthropological

More information

Chapter Two: Philosophical Influences on Psychology PSY 495 Dr. Rick Grieve Western Kentucky University Philosophy from the Greeks to Descartes

Chapter Two: Philosophical Influences on Psychology PSY 495 Dr. Rick Grieve Western Kentucky University Philosophy from the Greeks to Descartes Chapter Two: Philosophical Influences on Psychology PSY 495 Dr. Rick Grieve Western Kentucky University Plato and Aristotle o 400 BC to 300 BC Hellenistic Period Not much after this until 1200-1300 AD

More information

On The Search for a Perfect Language

On The Search for a Perfect Language On The Search for a Perfect Language Submitted to: Peter Trnka By: Alex Macdonald The correspondence theory of truth has attracted severe criticism. One focus of attack is the notion of correspondence

More information

Philosophy Pathways Issue th December 2016

Philosophy Pathways Issue th December 2016 Epistemological position of G.W.F. Hegel Sujit Debnath In this paper I shall discuss Epistemological position of G.W.F Hegel (1770-1831). In his epistemology Hegel discusses four sources of knowledge.

More information

The Varieties of Authorial Intention: Literary Theory Beyond the Intentional Fallacy. John Farrell. Forthcoming from Palgrave

The Varieties of Authorial Intention: Literary Theory Beyond the Intentional Fallacy. John Farrell. Forthcoming from Palgrave The Varieties of Authorial Intention: Literary Theory Beyond the Intentional Fallacy John Farrell Forthcoming from Palgrave Analytic Table of Contents Introduction: The Origins of an Intellectual Taboo

More information

The phenomenological tradition conceptualizes

The phenomenological tradition conceptualizes 15-Craig-45179.qxd 3/9/2007 3:39 PM Page 217 UNIT V INTRODUCTION THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL TRADITION The phenomenological tradition conceptualizes communication as dialogue or the experience of otherness. Although

More information

PAUL REDDING S CONTINENTAL IDEALISM (AND DELEUZE S CONTINUATION OF THE IDEALIST TRADITION) Sean Bowden

PAUL REDDING S CONTINENTAL IDEALISM (AND DELEUZE S CONTINUATION OF THE IDEALIST TRADITION) Sean Bowden PARRHESIA NUMBER 11 2011 75-79 PAUL REDDING S CONTINENTAL IDEALISM (AND DELEUZE S CONTINUATION OF THE IDEALIST TRADITION) Sean Bowden I came to Paul Redding s 2009 work, Continental Idealism: Leibniz to

More information

English/Philosophy Department ENG/PHL 100 Level Course Descriptions and Learning Outcomes

English/Philosophy Department ENG/PHL 100 Level Course Descriptions and Learning Outcomes English/Philosophy Department ENG/PHL 100 Level Course Descriptions and Learning Outcomes Course Course Name Course Description Course Learning Outcome ENG 101 College Composition A course emphasizing

More information

Narrating the Self: Parergonality, Closure and. by Holly Franking. hermeneutics focus attention on the transactional aspect of the aesthetic

Narrating the Self: Parergonality, Closure and. by Holly Franking. hermeneutics focus attention on the transactional aspect of the aesthetic Narrating the Self: Parergonality, Closure and by Holly Franking Many recent literary theories, such as deconstruction, reader-response, and hermeneutics focus attention on the transactional aspect of

More information

Kant Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics, Preface, excerpts 1 Critique of Pure Reason, excerpts 2 PHIL101 Prof. Oakes updated: 9/19/13 12:13 PM

Kant Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics, Preface, excerpts 1 Critique of Pure Reason, excerpts 2 PHIL101 Prof. Oakes updated: 9/19/13 12:13 PM Kant Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics, Preface, excerpts 1 Critique of Pure Reason, excerpts 2 PHIL101 Prof. Oakes updated: 9/19/13 12:13 PM Section II: What is the Self? Reading II.5 Immanuel Kant

More information

Beauvoir, The Second Sex (1949)

Beauvoir, The Second Sex (1949) Beauvoir, The Second Sex (1949) Against myth of eternal feminine When I use the words woman or feminine I evidently refer to no archetype, no changeless essence whatsoever; the reader must understand the

More information

The topic of this Majors Seminar is Relativism how to formulate it, and how to evaluate arguments for and against it.

The topic of this Majors Seminar is Relativism how to formulate it, and how to evaluate arguments for and against it. Majors Seminar Rovane Spring 2010 The topic of this Majors Seminar is Relativism how to formulate it, and how to evaluate arguments for and against it. The central text for the course will be a book manuscript

More information

Pierre Hadot on Philosophy as a Way of Life. Pierre Hadot ( ) was a French philosopher and historian of ancient philosophy,

Pierre Hadot on Philosophy as a Way of Life. Pierre Hadot ( ) was a French philosopher and historian of ancient philosophy, Adam Robbert Philosophical Inquiry as Spiritual Exercise: Ancient and Modern Perspectives California Institute of Integral Studies San Francisco, CA Thursday, April 19, 2018 Pierre Hadot on Philosophy

More information

Article Critique: Seeing Archives: Postmodernism and the Changing Intellectual Place of Archives

Article Critique: Seeing Archives: Postmodernism and the Changing Intellectual Place of Archives Donovan Preza LIS 652 Archives Professor Wertheimer Summer 2005 Article Critique: Seeing Archives: Postmodernism and the Changing Intellectual Place of Archives Tom Nesmith s article, "Seeing Archives:

More information

The Polish Peasant in Europe and America. W. I. Thomas and Florian Znaniecki

The Polish Peasant in Europe and America. W. I. Thomas and Florian Znaniecki 1 The Polish Peasant in Europe and America W. I. Thomas and Florian Znaniecki Now there are two fundamental practical problems which have constituted the center of attention of reflective social practice

More information

The Human Intellect: Aristotle s Conception of Νοῦς in his De Anima. Caleb Cohoe

The Human Intellect: Aristotle s Conception of Νοῦς in his De Anima. Caleb Cohoe The Human Intellect: Aristotle s Conception of Νοῦς in his De Anima Caleb Cohoe Caleb Cohoe 2 I. Introduction What is it to truly understand something? What do the activities of understanding that we engage

More information

Action, Criticism & Theory for Music Education

Action, Criticism & Theory for Music Education Action, Criticism & Theory for Music Education The refereed journal of the Volume 9, No. 1 January 2010 Wayne Bowman Editor Electronic Article Shusterman, Merleau-Ponty, and Dewey: The Role of Pragmatism

More information

Four Characteristic Research Paradigms

Four Characteristic Research Paradigms Part II... Four Characteristic Research Paradigms INTRODUCTION Earlier I identified two contrasting beliefs in methodology: one as a mechanism for securing validity, and the other as a relationship between

More information

Kant IV The Analogies The Schematism updated: 2/2/12. Reading: 78-88, In General

Kant IV The Analogies The Schematism updated: 2/2/12. Reading: 78-88, In General Kant IV The Analogies The Schematism updated: 2/2/12 Reading: 78-88, 100-111 In General The question at this point is this: Do the Categories ( pure, metaphysical concepts) apply to the empirical order?

More information

Page 1

Page 1 PHILOSOPHY, EDUCATION AND THEIR INTERDEPENDENCE The inter-dependence of philosophy and education is clearly seen from the fact that the great philosphers of all times have also been great educators and

More information

Aristotle. Aristotle. Aristotle and Plato. Background. Aristotle and Plato. Aristotle and Plato

Aristotle. Aristotle. Aristotle and Plato. Background. Aristotle and Plato. Aristotle and Plato Aristotle Aristotle Lived 384-323 BC. He was a student of Plato. Was the tutor of Alexander the Great. Founded his own school: The Lyceum. He wrote treatises on physics, cosmology, biology, psychology,

More information

MAURICE MANDELBAUM HISTORY, MAN, & REASON A STUDY IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY THOUGHT THE JOHNS HOPKINS PRESS: BALTIMORE AND LONDON

MAURICE MANDELBAUM HISTORY, MAN, & REASON A STUDY IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY THOUGHT THE JOHNS HOPKINS PRESS: BALTIMORE AND LONDON MAURICE MANDELBAUM HISTORY, MAN, & REASON A STUDY IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY THOUGHT THE JOHNS HOPKINS PRESS: BALTIMORE AND LONDON Copyright 1971 by The Johns Hopkins Press All rights reserved Manufactured

More information

Nature's Perspectives

Nature's Perspectives Nature's Perspectives Prospects for Ordinal Metaphysics Edited by Armen Marsoobian Kathleen Wallace Robert S. Corrington STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK PRESS Irl N z \'4 I F r- : an414 FA;ZW Introduction

More information

The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss Part II of II

The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss Part II of II The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss Part II of II From the book by David Bentley Hart W. Bruce Phillips Wonder & Innocence Wisdom is the recovery of wonder at the end of experience. The

More information

observation and conceptual interpretation

observation and conceptual interpretation 1 observation and conceptual interpretation Most people will agree that observation and conceptual interpretation constitute two major ways through which human beings engage the world. Questions about

More information

The Teaching Method of Creative Education

The Teaching Method of Creative Education Creative Education 2013. Vol.4, No.8A, 25-30 Published Online August 2013 in SciRes (http://www.scirp.org/journal/ce) http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ce.2013.48a006 The Teaching Method of Creative Education

More information

On Interpretation and Translation

On Interpretation and Translation Appendix Six On Interpretation and Translation The purpose of this appendix is to briefly discuss the hermeneutical assumptions that inform the approach to the Analects adopted in this translation the

More information

EPISTEMOLOGY, METHODOLOGY, AND THE SOCIAL SCIENCES

EPISTEMOLOGY, METHODOLOGY, AND THE SOCIAL SCIENCES EPISTEMOLOGY, METHODOLOGY, AND THE SOCIAL SCIENCES BOSTON STUDIES IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE EDITED BY ROBERT S. COHEN AND MARX W. WARTOFSKY VOLUME 71 EPISTEMOLOGY, METHODOLOGY, AND THE SOCIAL SCIENCES

More information

Heideggerian Ontology: A Philosophic Base for Arts and Humanties Education

Heideggerian Ontology: A Philosophic Base for Arts and Humanties Education Marilyn Zurmuehlen Working Papers in Art Education ISSN: 2326-7070 (Print) ISSN: 2326-7062 (Online) Volume 2 Issue 1 (1983) pps. 56-60 Heideggerian Ontology: A Philosophic Base for Arts and Humanties Education

More information

What do our appreciation of tonal music and tea roses, our acquisition of the concepts

What do our appreciation of tonal music and tea roses, our acquisition of the concepts Normativity and Purposiveness What do our appreciation of tonal music and tea roses, our acquisition of the concepts of a triangle and the colour green, and our cognition of birch trees and horseshoe crabs

More information

Making Modal Distinctions: Kant on the possible, the actual, and the intuitive understanding.

Making Modal Distinctions: Kant on the possible, the actual, and the intuitive understanding. Making Modal Distinctions: Kant on the possible, the actual, and the intuitive understanding. Jessica Leech Abstract One striking contrast that Kant draws between the kind of cognitive capacities that

More information

No Proposition can be said to be in the Mind, which it never yet knew, which it was never yet conscious of. (Essay I.II.5)

No Proposition can be said to be in the Mind, which it never yet knew, which it was never yet conscious of. (Essay I.II.5) Michael Lacewing Empiricism on the origin of ideas LOCKE ON TABULA RASA In An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, John Locke argues that all ideas are derived from sense experience. The mind is a tabula

More information

Action Theory for Creativity and Process

Action Theory for Creativity and Process Action Theory for Creativity and Process Fu Jen Catholic University Bernard C. C. Li Keywords: A. N. Whitehead, Creativity, Process, Action Theory for Philosophy, Abstract The three major assignments for

More information

Mitchell ABOULAFIA, Transcendence. On selfdetermination

Mitchell ABOULAFIA, Transcendence. On selfdetermination European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy IV - 1 2012 Pragmatism and the Social Sciences: A Century of Influences and Interactions, vol. 2 Mitchell ABOULAFIA, Transcendence. On selfdetermination

More information

This thesis is protected by copyright which belongs to the author.

This thesis is protected by copyright which belongs to the author. A University of Sussex DPhil thesis Available online via Sussex Research Online: http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/ This thesis is protected by copyright which belongs to the author. This thesis cannot be reproduced

More information

Humanities 4: Lecture 19. Friedrich Schiller: On the Aesthetic Education of Man

Humanities 4: Lecture 19. Friedrich Schiller: On the Aesthetic Education of Man Humanities 4: Lecture 19 Friedrich Schiller: On the Aesthetic Education of Man Biography of Schiller 1759-1805 Studied medicine Author, historian, dramatist, & poet The Robbers (1781) Ode to Joy (1785)

More information

1. Two very different yet related scholars

1. Two very different yet related scholars 1. Two very different yet related scholars Comparing the intellectual output of two scholars is always a hard effort because you have to deal with the complexity of a thought expressed in its specificity.

More information

What is Science? What is the purpose of science? What is the relationship between science and social theory?

What is Science? What is the purpose of science? What is the relationship between science and social theory? What is Science? The development of knowledge, ultimately in the form of laws and theories and based on a systematic examination of facts (the scientific research methods). What is the purpose of science?

More information

Having the World in View: Essays on Kant, Hegel, and Sellars

Having the World in View: Essays on Kant, Hegel, and Sellars Having the World in View: Essays on Kant, Hegel, and Sellars Having the World in View: Essays on Kant, Hegel, and Sellars By John Henry McDowell Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England: Harvard University

More information

Chapter Six Integral Spirituality

Chapter Six Integral Spirituality The following is excerpted from the forthcoming book: Integral Consciousness and the Future of Evolution, by Steve McIntosh; due to be published by Paragon House in September 2007. Steve McIntosh, all

More information

BOOK REVIEW. ALL THINGS SHINING: READING THE WESTERN CLASSICS TO FIND MEANING IN A SECULAR AGE (Hubert Dreyfus and Sean Dorrance Kelly)

BOOK REVIEW. ALL THINGS SHINING: READING THE WESTERN CLASSICS TO FIND MEANING IN A SECULAR AGE (Hubert Dreyfus and Sean Dorrance Kelly) BOOK REVIEW ALL THINGS SHINING: READING THE WESTERN CLASSICS TO FIND MEANING IN A SECULAR AGE (Hubert Dreyfus and Sean Dorrance Kelly) Book Review by Prof. John Matturri Queen College, City University

More information

Kent Academic Repository

Kent Academic Repository Kent Academic Repository Full text document (pdf) Citation for published version Sayers, Sean (1995) The Value of Community. Radical Philosophy (69). pp. 2-4. ISSN 0300-211X. DOI Link to record in KAR

More information

LI ZEHOU'S AESTHETICS AS A MARXIST PHILOSOPHY OF FREEDOM

LI ZEHOU'S AESTHETICS AS A MARXIST PHILOSOPHY OF FREEDOM DIALOGUE AND UNIVERSALISM No. 11-12/2003 Brian Bruya LI ZEHOU'S AESTHETICS AS A MARXIST PHILOSOPHY OF FREEDOM ABSTRACT Despite his status as one of the most prominent Chinese intellectuals living outside

More information

Original works of the great classical. and contemporary philosophers are. used in all courses. Texts are analyzed

Original works of the great classical. and contemporary philosophers are. used in all courses. Texts are analyzed 175 Humanities Division Faculty Cyrus W. Banning Juan E. Chair, Associate Professor Daniel Kading Ronald E. McLaren Andrew W. Pessin Associate Professor (on leave) Joel F. Associate Professor Yang Assistant

More information

SECTION I: MARX READINGS

SECTION I: MARX READINGS SECTION I: MARX READINGS part 1 Marx s Vision of History: Historical Materialism This part focuses on the broader conceptual framework, or overall view of history and human nature, that informed Marx

More information

Foucault's Technologies of the Self: A Kantian Project?

Foucault's Technologies of the Self: A Kantian Project? Foucault's Technologies of the Self: A Kantian Project? The attempt to bring unity to Michel Foucault's corpus is beset by problems, not the least of which is its ultimately unfinished character. Beyond

More information

Notes: Murdoch, The Sublime and the Good

Notes: Murdoch, The Sublime and the Good Notes: Murdoch, The Sublime and the Good In this essay Iris Murdoch formulates and defends a definition of art that is consistent with her belief that "art and morals are one...their essence is the same".

More information

HEGEL, ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY AND THE RETURN OF METAPHYISCS Simon Lumsden

HEGEL, ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY AND THE RETURN OF METAPHYISCS Simon Lumsden PARRHESIA NUMBER 11 2011 89-93 HEGEL, ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY AND THE RETURN OF METAPHYISCS Simon Lumsden At issue in Paul Redding s 2007 work, Analytic Philosophy and the Return of Hegelian Thought, and in

More information

IMPORTANT QUOTATIONS

IMPORTANT QUOTATIONS IMPORTANT QUOTATIONS 1) NB: Spontaneity is to natural order as freedom is to the moral order. a) It s hard to overestimate the importance of the concept of freedom is for German Idealism and its abiding

More information

Course Description. Alvarado- Díaz, Alhelí de María 1. The author of One Dimensional Man, Herbert Marcuse lecturing at the Freie Universität, 1968

Course Description. Alvarado- Díaz, Alhelí de María 1. The author of One Dimensional Man, Herbert Marcuse lecturing at the Freie Universität, 1968 Political Philosophy, Psychoanalysis and Social Action: From Individual Consciousness to Collective Liberation Alhelí de María Alvarado- Díaz ada2003@columbia.edu The author of One Dimensional Man, Herbert

More information

Feeling Lonesome: The Philosophy and Psychology of Loneliness By Ben Lazare Mijuscovic

Feeling Lonesome: The Philosophy and Psychology of Loneliness By Ben Lazare Mijuscovic 64 Journal of Thought, Fall-Winter 2015 Feeling Lonesome: The Philosophy and Psychology of Loneliness By Ben Lazare Mijuscovic Reviewed by Joshua Marcus Cragle University of Amsterdam In his recent work

More information

These are some notes to give you some idea of the content of the lecture they are not exhaustive, nor always accurate! So read the referenced work.

These are some notes to give you some idea of the content of the lecture they are not exhaustive, nor always accurate! So read the referenced work. Research Methods II: Lecture notes These are some notes to give you some idea of the content of the lecture they are not exhaustive, nor always accurate! So read the referenced work. Consider the approaches

More information

1/10. The A-Deduction

1/10. The A-Deduction 1/10 The A-Deduction Kant s transcendental deduction of the pure concepts of understanding exists in two different versions and this week we are going to be looking at the first edition version. After

More information

Chapter 2: Karl Marx Test Bank

Chapter 2: Karl Marx Test Bank Chapter 2: Karl Marx Test Bank Multiple-Choice Questions: 1. Which of the following is a class in capitalism according to Marx? a) Protestants b) Wage laborers c) Villagers d) All of the above 2. Marx

More information

Foucault and the Human Sciences. By Rebecca Norlander. January 1, 2008

Foucault and the Human Sciences. By Rebecca Norlander. January 1, 2008 Foucault and the Human Sciences By Rebecca Norlander January 1, 2008 2 In this three-part essay, I endeavor to: (1) establish a basic understanding of postmodernism as necessary for situating the work

More information

Mass Communication Theory

Mass Communication Theory Mass Communication Theory 2015 spring sem Prof. Jaewon Joo 7 traditions of the communication theory Key Seven Traditions in the Field of Communication Theory 1. THE SOCIO-PSYCHOLOGICAL TRADITION: Communication

More information

Louis Althusser, What is Practice?

Louis Althusser, What is Practice? Louis Althusser, What is Practice? The word practice... indicates an active relationship with the real. Thus one says of a tool that it is very practical when it is particularly well adapted to a determinate

More information

Deconstruction is a way of understanding how something was created and breaking something down into smaller parts.

Deconstruction is a way of understanding how something was created and breaking something down into smaller parts. ENGLISH 102 Deconstruction is a way of understanding how something was created and breaking something down into smaller parts. Sometimes deconstruction looks at how an author can imply things he/she does

More information

Self-Consciousness and Music in the Late Enlightenment

Self-Consciousness and Music in the Late Enlightenment chapter 1 Self-Consciousness and Music in the Late Enlightenment How can I say I! without self-consciousness? Friedrich Hölderlin, Judgment and Being No other philosophical concept so clearly defines the

More information

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO INSTRUCTORSHIPS IN PHILOSOPHY CUPE Local 3902, Unit 1 SUMMER SESSION 2019

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO INSTRUCTORSHIPS IN PHILOSOPHY CUPE Local 3902, Unit 1 SUMMER SESSION 2019 UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO INSTRUCTORSHIPS IN PHILOSOPHY CUPE Local 3902, Unit 1 SUMMER SESSION Department of Philosophy, Campus Posted on: Friday February 22, Department of Philosophy, UTM Applications due:

More information

Ralph K. Hawkins Bethel College Mishawaka, Indiana

Ralph K. Hawkins Bethel College Mishawaka, Indiana RBL 03/2008 Moore, Megan Bishop Philosophy and Practice in Writing a History of Ancient Israel Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies 435 New York: T&T Clark, 2006. Pp. x + 205. Hardcover. $115.00.

More information

Guide to the Republic as it sets up Plato s discussion of education in the Allegory of the Cave.

Guide to the Republic as it sets up Plato s discussion of education in the Allegory of the Cave. Guide to the Republic as it sets up Plato s discussion of education in the Allegory of the Cave. The Republic is intended by Plato to answer two questions: (1) What IS justice? and (2) Is it better to

More information

Review of Krzysztof Brzechczyn, Idealization XIII: Modeling in History

Review of Krzysztof Brzechczyn, Idealization XIII: Modeling in History Review Essay Review of Krzysztof Brzechczyn, Idealization XIII: Modeling in History Giacomo Borbone University of Catania In the 1970s there appeared the Idealizational Conception of Science (ICS) an alternative

More information